Ayla
is the chief of the Ioka tribe in 65,000,000 BC. Her people are in constant war against the Reptites, an evolved, intelligent race of reptiles. She is characterized as fiercely courageous, decisively confident, and morally pure. Biography After Lavos hits the planet, dust blasts into the atmosphere and blocks out the sun. This causes an ice age and the extinction of the Reptites; Ayla subsequently retires from her duties as chief. Ayla cannot use magic because she was born before humans became genetically capable of doing so (as further explained through human evolution in Chrono Cross). She relies on unarmed combat and physical prowess in battle. Interestingly, in the original Japanese and the re-translated English version, she makes a potentially bisexual comment upon meeting the party (which was censored to "respect" in the original English translation). In the new re-translation in Chrono Trigger DS there seems to be subtle hints that she is in the very early stages of pregnancy, commenting that upon having a child, or being killed, Kino will become chief of the Ioka Village, and becoming ill after the defeat of Nizbel in the Reptite Lair. Ayla also expressed concern over the small size of Marle's breasts, worrying that they weren't sufficient to give milk to children; this exchange was also censored. Story Ayla is first introduced to the party when Crono and his friends visit the prehistoric era to repair Frog's sword, The Masamune, to assist in their battle against Magus, leader of the Mystics and murderer of Frog's bestfriend Cyrus. The broken pieces of the Masamune are acquired after the party defeats Masa and Mune, guardians of the blade. The shards are taken to Melchior, a swordsmith and Guru, who cannot repair the blade without Dreamstone, a crimson-colored rock of ancient origin--so ancient that the party must travel millions of years into the past to recover a sample. Upon their arrival in Mystic Mountain, they are ambushed by a seemingly ceaseless swarms of Reptite. Ayla shows up to fight them off and invites the time-travelers to her village for a party. Ayla, as chieftan due to her strength and will, is keeper of the Dreamstone, and during the party, if Chrono beats Ayla at a soup-chugging competition, she willingly forks it over. However, when the sun rises the next day, they find the camp has been ransacked by Reptites and the Gate Key stolen. Tracking the reptilian maurauders to Forest Maze, Ayla convinces Kino to admit he had stolen the Gate Key out of jealousy, after which point the Reptites stole it from him. Ayla, Crono, and the others invade the Reptite Lair, defeat Nizbel, and take the Gate Key from Azala so they can return to the present and repair the sword. Ayla does not appear again until the battle against Magus transports the party back to Prehistory. Alongside Ayla, Crono and the others battle the Reptites and witness the origin of Lavos. As the alien parasite falls from the sky as a "Red Star", Azala predicts an Ice Age will claim the land. It is at this point that Ayla names "Lavos", a word she made up from the root words "La" meaning "fire" and "Vos" "big" in the Iokan language. Ayla's strong morals convince her to join the party permanently after this. After the defeat of Lavos, Ayla returned to 65,000,000 B.C. and married Kino with a Dreamstone ring. Appearance Ayla's name could be an allusion to Jean Auel's Earth's Children series, the protagonist of which is a tall, light blonde-hair, blue-eyed, prehistoric girl named Ayla. It could also refer to the tayra (Eira barbara), as her outfit contains a furry tail skin to the one of this animal. In the ending cutscene of the PlayStation and Nintendo DS port of Chrono Trigger, Ayla is seen brashly forcing engagement on Kino, her suitor and one of Marle's ancestors. This displays her confident and strong-willed personality. In Chrono Cross, Ayla does not make an appearance; however, a young girl from prehistoric time named Leah bears a striking resemblance to her in manner and appearance. She also says to Serge at the end of the game that she will name her child "Ayla", a name meaning "New song of land" according to her. Abilities Departing from the usual role of female characters in role-playing games, Ayla is a physical damage dealer. Physically, she is the strongest character in Chrono Trigger, and is able to take the most damage next to Robo. Unlike the other characters, Ayla doesn't equip a weapon, though she does still equip armor, she instead fights with her bare hands, and her hands upgrade as weapons as she levels up. This makes her cheaper to equip than other characters, since she only needs to equip armor. Interestingly, in full-motion video present in the PlayStation release of the game, Ayla attacks enemies with a club. This never appears in game. All of her techs focus on dealing physical damage, except her Charm tech, which is used to steal items, and Kiss which heals one character. This also makes Ayla the game's "thief" character, because her charm ability is the only way to obtain items from enemies. Although Ayla cannot use magic, she has a small percentage of resistance against Fire magic (each character his a small resistance against something). This suggests that if Ayla had the genetics for magic, she'd be a Fire innate like Lucca. Further driving home the point, Ayla's name is composed of two syllables, "Ay" and "La" respectively. She admits that "La" in Iokan tongue means "Fire", and "Ay" in conventional English is an affirmation or a tongue-in-cheek version of the pronoun "I". In other words, "I fire" Techs Trivia *Leah, from states, if she had a daughter, her name would be Ayla. Leah is from a time period just before Ayla's birth. Gallery Category:Chrono Trigger Characters Category:Playable characters